Balkans Road Trip: Day 5 – Plitvice and Zadar

April 30, 2023

Today was a major driving day. Charting an eastward course, I drove for three hours straight, after which we took a short break to refill the tank and empty ourselves. We then drove another half an hour to Plitvice Lakes National Park. Yang navigated for much of the journey, as our GPS refused to send us along the tolled highway. Holding her phone with Google Maps open so that I could see it, she would give me the occasional heads up when we were approaching a turn.

Having driven down derelict country roads for about an hour since passing Rijeka, we were surprised to find the parking lot at Plitvice full of cars. There were hundreds upon hundreds – from all countries in the neighbourhood as well as more far-flung places like the Netherlands and Norway. Unsurprisingly, the park was packed. Long queues filled the wooden walkways over the waterfalls, shuffling along like a horde of inappropriately dressed convicts.

The best views of the waterfalls at Plitvice, we discovered, are not offered by the boardwalks but by the overlooks, as those are less crowded and give a birds-eye view of entire groups of waterfalls. The constant jostling above rushing water, while exciting, is not particularly fun nor scenic. However, we made the most of it, and took many close-up pictures of the waterfalls while competing for coveted spots.

Parking at Plitvice is by the hour, and we ended up paying only three euros. From thence we continued another two hours to Zadar, returning from the Croatian heartlands to the coast. The weather turned sunny and warm, while the hills turned ragged and bare, rising between Zadar and the heartlands like a massive, green-flecked grey wall. All the driving today was quite scenic, with glimpses of inlets under winding roads in the morning, and views of hills at the foot of the snow-capped Alps in the afternoon.

After checking in at our hotel in Zadar, we crossed the bridge into the old city, which spreads over a peninsula on the Dalmatian coast. We walked around for perhaps an hour, ate dinner, and then walked around again, soaking up the atmosphere of the city from afternoon to sunset. Yang was especially happy to be on the coast again, and I was glad to see more ancient ruins, quaint alleys, and grand churches. The most impressive sight was probably the church of Saint Donatus, which towers at the very centre of the peninsula over the remains of Roman columns.